


Losing My Motivation

by Whiskey_With_Patron



Series: Flores Facets [4]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Nico has his own sides, mentions of thomas but he's not present in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28573230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whiskey_With_Patron/pseuds/Whiskey_With_Patron
Summary: Nico keeps trying to write, but he can't seem to come up with any ideas he likes. The facets visit Creativity's room so get inspired, but Paranoia doesn't seem to like any of the ideas that they come up with.
Series: Flores Facets [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970398
Comments: 44
Kudos: 65





	Losing My Motivation

**Author's Note:**

> this one didn't really turn out the way i wanted it to, but it's finished so i figured i'd post it. i meant to have this one as sort of a short little installment to the series, like a Sanders Asides, but then it ended up with some plot in it. also, i finished this yesterday and am posting it with minimal proofreading so if there are any typos or things that just straight up don't make sense, that's probably why-
> 
> WARNING! at the end, there is fighting and shouting in the background, implications of possible violence although nothing is shown, and one of the facets is a bit unnerving and mentions brains at one point.

Nico heaved a sigh and leaned back in his seat on the couch. His laptop was open on his lap in front of him, showing a blank white word document. All he’d done was save the blank document with a title.

He had been trying to write for _hours_.

He’d gotten up relatively early in the morning and opened his laptop, in the perfect mood to write. But then Logic interrupted before he could begin by reminding him to eat breakfast. After that, Heart popped up and encouraged Nico to take a break by watching the first episode of a cartoon that Thomas had recommended he see, and one episode turned into six, and by then it was just about time for lunch.

Now it was almost two p.m. and he hadn’t written a single gosh darn word.

The thing was, Nico didn’t even know what the problem was. He’d woken up inspired to start working, but then time went on and that inspiration just left. Where it had gone, he had no idea. He just didn’t feel like he wanted to write today, even though he actually really, really did.

And Paranoia certainly wasn’t helping.

“You’re never going to become a real author if all you do is watch Netflix,” a familiar voice hissed.

Nico sighed. “Shut up, Paranoia.”

A dark figure popped up behind the couch and peered down at Nico. “You better get working, Flores,” Paranoia said from under the hood of his dark cloak.

Nico raked his hands through his hair. “I can’t, man. I don’t know what the problem is.”

Another one of Nico’s facets rose up into the living room. “Well, it’s certainly not me,” Logic said, cradling a cup of steaming tea in his hand. “I’m providing you with everything you could possibly need. A large vocabulary, a variety of ideas we’ve formulated in past brainstorming sessions, and a schedule perfectly worked out to incorporate your writing time.” He straightened his orange framed glasses. “What has you set back?”

Nico shifted on the couch, a little unwilling to say it out loud because Logic tended to get upset when Nico critiqued his work. “I just... I don’t feel like writing those ideas. They feel unoriginal.”

To Nico’s surprise, Logic only scoffed. “Oh, well that’s not an issue for me. That’s Creativity’s department.”

Heart rose up behind the kitchen counter. He leaned across it to look into the living room. “Hey, where is our bright little wizard, anyway? Isn’t he usually up and at ‘em by now?”

Nico furrowed his brow. Now that Heart mentioned it, Creativity hadn’t shown up physically yet. Maybe if Nico talked to him, he could figure out what his writing problem was.

He sat up with a tired sigh. “Creativity,” he called.

Everyone in the room jumped as Creativity appeared in a whirl of sparkles. He stumbled into the wall and toppled over. His purple wizard cloak flopped over his head. He lied on the ground and groaned.

“Creativity,” Logic said. “Get up. We have things to ask you.”

Creativity grumbled and rolled over so he was lying on his stomach. He braced his hands on the floor and pushed himself half-upright. His cloak still covered his head.

“Hey buddy,” Heart said with a bright smile. “How’s it going?”

Creativity flopped back to the floor. “I hate myself,” came his muffled voice.

“Aww, don’t be like that, pal!” Heart skipped over to him and sat on the floor. “What’s got you all sad?”

“He can’t write anything original,” Paranoia said.

“What do you mean?” Heart said. “Creativity is plenty original! He’s just...” Heart peered through his gold framed glasses at the purple lump of fabric that was Creativity. “Well, I don’t actually know what he’s doing right now. Creativity? You okay?”

Creativity wriggled around until his face appeared from out of the fabric. “Writer’s block,” he mumbled.

Nico furrowed his brow, a little confused. “You don’t usually get like this when we have writer’s block.”

“Some cases are worse than others.” Logic set his teacup down on the coffee table and walked over to Creativity. He leaned down and lifted Creativity under the arms, setting him on his feet. He flipped the purple cloak off Creativity’s head. “Yeah, he doesn’t look great.”

He turned Creativity around and presented him to the others. Creativity blinked wearily and squinted in the light. Dark circles had formed under his eyes. His cloak was normally a bright violet, but it had faded to a bruised purple.

Creativity wiggled out of Logic’s hands. “I can stand on my own,” he muttered. There was no energy behind his words.

“This isn’t your usual writer’s block,” Logic mused. “You’re often in a frenzied state of overworking and frustration. Not... this.”

Creativity sighed. “Well, if you wanted that, you should have summoned me earlier. I’ve been trying to come up with things all day. Now I’m just...” He huffed. “I’m tired. And you want to know whose fault it is?”

“Who?” Nico asked.

Creativity pointed to Paranoia. “It’s his fault. Nothing I do is good enough for him. He kept barging into my room, criticizing everything and anything I did.”

“I don’t ‘barge’ into people’s rooms,” Paranoia snarled. “I just appear. If you don’t want me in your room, too bad. You can’t keep me out.”

Logic furrowed his brow. “Paranoia, you have been entering Creativity’s room without his permission?”

“Uh, yeah. Why, what’s the problem?”

Nico set his laptop aside and stood up. “Wait, I need an explanation. You guys have rooms?”

“Using ‘rooms’ as a figurative term, yes,” Logic said. “They are the places in your mind that you tend to use when one of your facets is at work. If Creativity and I aren’t physically present when you’re writing, we are often working in our rooms, making sure everything is in order. If you are speaking to someone you have romantic feelings for, such as Thomas, and you’re feeling all those strange mushy feelings that I don’t understand, that’s Heart working in his room.”

“So, Paranoia’s going into Creativity’s room and messing things up?” Nico asked.

“Precisely.”

“I’m not messing things up,” Paranoia snapped. “I’m making sure you don’t screw up and make a fool out of yourself. There’s a difference.”

“Paranoia, you’re not helping,” Logic said. He sighed. “Perhaps it would be best if we visited Creativity’s room in order to see what the root of our problem is.”

“That’ll be fun!” Heart cheered. “It’s been so long since I’ve been to your room, Creativity.”

Creativity bit his lip. “I... I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“Nonsense,” Logic said. “All of my ideas are good ideas.” He took hold of Nico’s arm. “Come along, Nico.”

Unsure of where this was going, Nico watched as Creativity sank out, followed by Heart. “How do I...?”

He started to sink into the floor with Logic and Paranoia. A cold feeling washed over him, like he was being splashed with ice water, and then he rose up. He stumbled when his feet connected with the floor again. Logic tightened his hold on Nico’s arm to keep him steady.

“That was new,” Nico muttered.

He glanced around. It looked like they had just rose up into Nico’s apartment again, but some things were... different. Posters of movies and books and bands that Nico liked plastered the walls. Elegant purple curtains lined the windows. Nico ducked as a book flew past his head, flapping its pages like a bird. Instead of a TV, across the couch was a large crystal ball, the surface swirling with galaxies and nebulas. Nico tore his gaze away from it before he could get too distracted.

“This is... weird,” Nico said, unable to come up with anything else to say.

“Our rooms reflect wherever your location is,” Logic said. “That is to say, it wouldn’t suddenly change into a grocery store if you decided to go shopping. Its appearance remains as wherever you consider your home to be.”

Heart popped up behind the couch. “Oh, this place is lovely!” he chirped. His eyes flitted all around the room before they settled on the crystal ball. He stared into the shifting surface, eyes wide.

Creativity shrugged. “It’s not much. I didn’t get to clean because I wasn’t aware I would be having company.” He shot a glare at Paranoia.

Paranoia scoffed. “Whatever, Harry Potter. It’s not my fault the rest of you dorks decided to pop in.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything amiss at the moment,” Logic mused. “Creativity, why aren’t your ideas sticking?”

“I don’t know!” Creativity snapped. He brought his wizard staff out from the folds of his robe and leaned on it. “Ask him.” He pointed at Paranoia.

“Your ideas suck, man,” Paranoia said. “That’s a you problem, not a me problem.”

Creativity glowered at him. “Shut your yap, you emo Hot Topic looking motherf—”

“Okay!” Heart interrupted with a nervous laugh. “Let’s keep the language PG here, folks.” He wandered out form behind the couch to marvel at a few books that fluttered past. “Creativity, this all looks amazing! I don’t know what Paranoia’s talking about. You’re doing great.”

Logic straightened his blazer, gazing around the room. “Yes, it appears that way,” he said. “Nico, do you feel any more inspired?”

It didn’t take much soul searching for Nico to notice that no, he felt no more inspired than he had a few minutes ago. He was pretty sure he felt even less inspired.

“No,” he admitted.

“Then there’s something wrong,” Logic muttered. “Creativity, give us an idea. Something for a poem or a song or something. Anything, really.”

They all turned to Creativity. Usually, he thrived on attention, but now he just seemed anxious upon being put on the spot. He shuffled his feet and glanced around the room.

“Um... here.” He reached up with his staff and knocked a book out of the air. It landed in his hand. Mumbling to himself under his breath, he flipped through it, searching for something to show to Nico.

His eyes lit up. “Oh, this isn’t that bad.” He rushed forward, book in hand, and held it out to Nico. “It’s something I’ve been considering for a while. What if we wrote a fantasy book about a young man who works as a monster hunter of sorts, and he finds a dragon egg in the forest and feels like he has to keep it safe—”

“Boring,” Paranoia interrupted. “Try a different genre already. You’ve written too much fantasy. Do you really think a publisher would want to read that garbage?”

Creativity heaved a frustrated sigh. “It’s not that bad.”

“Yeah, it is.” Paranoia plucked the book out of Creativity’s hands and skimmed the pages. “We’re never going to get anywhere with stuff like this. We’re just going to keep trying and trying and then we’ll have wasted our entire life away on some useless dream to become an author, and people are going to hate us because we’re not successful, and we’re going to lose all of our friends and die alone because we’ve pushed away the only person who’s ever going to actually love us.”

A familiar feeling of anxiety washed over Nico. “Yeah, that one’s a little iffy, Creativity. Sorry. I... I’m not feeling it.”

Creativity’s shoulders slumped. “Okay. Um...” He scanned the room for something else. He jumped up and snatched a book out of the air. Flipping through it, he mumbled to himself under his breath as he searched for something else to show Nico. “Well, how about this? It’s an idea for a poem, using religious motifs since Nico was raised Catholic—”

“Another religion poem?” Paranoia snorted. “Hardly original, Harry Potter. Besides, I know you tend to use religious imagery in a negative way, and you know how I feel about that.”

Creativity huffed. “This isn’t easy, you know.” He let the book flutter back into the open air and glanced around, his gaze almost frantic. “Um... uh, how about...” He smacked another book out of the air with his staff. “A story about... uh...” He flipped through the pages of the book. “A wizard who—who befriends a sea monster—”

“Wizards again?” Paranoia interrupted. “Really? What did I just say about fantasy?”

“It could be modern fantasy!” Creativity protested.

“Still fantasy, Potterhead. Come on. Get yourself together and think of something new. You’re going to fail no matter what. Let’s just give up on our stupid dreams.”

“I think that’s enough,” Logic said, stepping between the two facets. “I believe I’ve discovered the culprit of Nico’s writer’s block.”

“Oh, did you now?” Creativity gestured to Paranoia. “Like it wasn’t obvious from the start.”

Logic straightened his orange glasses. “Good guess, but no. Paranoia is not the metaphorical root of our problem. There is often never only one issue alone that causes our problems. His hyperactivity is simply the figurative dying stem that has led to our figurative wilted flower buds—Creativity’s writer’s block.”

“Then what’s the root of the problem?” Nico asked.

To Nico’s surprise, Logic gestured to Heart. “Him. Heart is the root of our writer’s block.”

Creativity gasped. “Ooh, a plot twist!”

Heart glanced around when everyone’s eyes landed on him. He gave a nervous chuckle. “Whatever makes you think that it’s me?”

“Think about everything Paranoia just said,” Logic stated. “He didn’t explicitly mention our ex-boyfriend while berating Creativity for his unoriginality, but the implication was clearly there. Then there was the comment on our religious upbringing, something that Heart has had conflicted feelings about for years, which is coincidentally also something that our ex tried to get us to believe in again while we were in a relationship with him. And let’s not forget Paranoia’s insistence that we, and I quote, ‘give up on our stupid dreams’. Doesn’t that sound familiar?”

Nico’s eyes widened in realization. “That’s exactly what Jamie told me when I entered a writing contest last year and didn’t win.” A feeling of frustration came over him. “Ugh, why does everything always have to come back to Jamie?”

Heart raised a hand and nervously scratched at the thin porcelain-like cracks along the skin of his face. “I... I’m sorry, guys. I really am. I’m trying.”

“And that is all that any of us can ask of you,” Logic said. “it just so happens that Heart’s attachment to Jamie is effecting the rest of us to a rather unhealthy degree. Except for me. I am Logic, and therefore I have no feelings or emotional bias. But it’s certainly effecting Paranoia.”

“No it’s not!” Paranoia snapped.

Logic raised a brow. “Oh really? Then why have you been bugging Creativity all day?”

“Because he’s setting Nico up for failure!”

“And why do you think that?”

“Because it’s true!”

“And why do you think that?”

“Because Jamie always said...” Paranoia’s voice trailed off. He hunched his shoulders. “Okay, I guess you’re right, sort of.”

“Of course I am. When am I ever wrong?”

“But how do we fix it?” Creativity groaned. “I want to be able to write, Logic. And I can’t work under these conditions.” He fidgeted with the edge of his bruise-coloured cloak.

“Trust me, man, I want to write, too,” Nico said. “But I guess even when I think I feel fine...” He waved a hand in Paranoia’s direction. “My paranoia is still in the back of my head.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t win.”

“It’s not entirely Paranoia’s fault that he is the way he is,” Logic continued. “Although it’s not Heart’s fault, either. Whether they mean to or not, they only make each other worse when it comes to the topic of Jamie because they both want the same thing, but for different reasons. However, the real person at fault here is Jamie.”

Creativity gave a sharp nod. “Agreed. This is why you’re my favourite, Logic. You’re very good at sifting though Nico’s emotional nonsense.”

Logic straightened his tie and cleared his throat, clearly trying to pretend he didn’t hear the compliment, but a slight smile tugged at his lips. “Well... anyway, I suppose the only real way to fix this would be to help Heart and Paranoia distance themselves further from the idea of Jamie, but Paranoia refuses to let Nico see a therapist.”

Nico held up a hand to stop Logic. “Wait a minute. I’ve never thought about seeing a therapist.”

“Because Paranoia has threatened the rest of us to keep that suggestion of Logic’s away from you,” Creativity sighed. “It’s specifically one facet that he’s continuously fighting with on the subject, but I wouldn’t be surprised if _that_ one suddenly popped up with the suggestion against Paranoia’s wishes. He’s too unpredictable.”

Logic shrugged. “I happen to find him very good company. Unknown facets aside, since we can’t address the problem at hand without going absolutely off the rails, perhaps we can solve this problem another way.”

Heart fiddled with the necklace at his throat. “Like, how?”

Logic reached up and snatched a book out of the air. “Creativity, give us another idea.”

Creativity hesitated as Logic held the book out to him. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Show us something you’re proud of.”

Creativity gently took the book in his hands and flipped it open. “Well... here’s one poem I was thinking of writing for Thomas.”

Nico’s face flushed. “Right, I was thinking about that earlier.”

“You’re never going to give it to him,” Paranoia pointed out.

“Yeah, probably not,” Nico sighed.

“But it would be nice if you did,” Heart piped up.

“Anyway,” Logic continued, “the poem?”

Creativity cleared his throat. “Well, I wanted to write a sort of Shakespeare inspired poem—you know, because he’s an actor, and everything.”

“Lame,” Paranoia jeered.

“Shut up,” Logic said. “Creativity, continue.”

Creativity shot a wary glance at Paranoia before he turned back to his book. “Um... well, I was going to try drawing comparisons between us and a few different Shakespearian couples. Like Romeo and Juliet—”

“Overdone,” Paranoia said.

 _“And_ others,” Creativity added with a glare. “Like, maybe instead of just using the straight couples, I could make some allusions to Benvolio and Mercutio, or Hamlet and Horatio. It’s not exactly a good idea. I haven’t given myself time to flesh it out much.” He shut the book and hugged it close to his chest, looking slightly embarrassed having said his piece.

Logic nodded. “Alright. Creativity, what do you think of this idea of yours? Give me an honest answer, please.”

Creativity swallowed and thumbed at the edge of the pages. “Well... I think it would be interesting to write. And even if it’s not as good as I want it to be, it will at least be some fun practice to get out of our comfort zone. Writing in Shakespearian language seems cool.”

“Alright.” Logic turned to Paranoia. “Paranoia, please tell us what you think of the idea.”

Paranoia lifted his head to stare at Logic. He didn’t respond for a moment. “You... _want_ to hear what I have to say?”

Logic gave a sharp nod. “Yes. Please explain your thoughts.”

Paranoia glanced between everyone in the room. He hunched his shoulders upon seeing that they were all staring at him. “Uh... well, I’m just anxious that Thomas won’t like it. We’ve never written something like that before. We might screw it up. We don’t know if he’s...” He gave Heart a nervous look. “We don’t know if he’s like Jamie,” he finished quietly. “He might get mad at us as soon as he sees it. We don’t actually know what Thomas is like.”

Heart visibly winced at that. Nico almost wanted to apologize for what his paranoia thought, but he had to admit that Paranoia had a point. He didn’t truly know what Thomas was like.

“That’s why you keep wanting me to get back together with Jamie,” Nico said. “We know him. Even though he sucks, we know what to expect. I don’t know what to expect with Thomas.”

Paranoia nodded. “The devil we know if better than the devil we don’t.”

Creativity huffed and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Every problem. Every single problem traces itself right back to Jamie.”

“Hold that thought,” Logic said. “We’re still working on Nico’s writer’s block. We’re not looking to solve everything right here and now. We’re taking baby steps.” He turned to Heart. “Opinions on Creativity’s poem idea?”

Heart’s face brightened a little. “Oh! I think it’s very creative and original. I haven’t seen many gay poems inspired by Shakespeare. I think it’ll be really fun to write it, and it’s a good way to try something new without pushing ourselves too far out of our comfort zone.” He opened his mouth like he was about to say more, but he clamped it shut and said nothing else.

Logic raised a brow. “Anything else to add?”

Heart shook his head, fidgeting with the necklace at his throat. “Nope. That’s... that’s it.”

Logic crossed his arms. “Heart,” he said firmly. “Stop lying.”

Heart winced at Logic’s words. His shoulders slumped in defeat. “Okay. Well... I’m just a little hesitant because we’re... we’re writing a love poem for Thomas and not... Jamie.”

Creativity huffed. “Heart, you know he’s—”

“I know!” Heart burst suddenly. One of the cracks on his face lengthened. “I know he’s bad, and I know he hurt Nico, and I know that he always criticized us and only seemed to care about us when we could do something for him. But no matter how many times you tell me that, I just...” Heart wrapped his arms around himself as his gold heart necklace dulled to a brassy silver before their eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about him. He hurt me specifically and that hurt Nico. I know that, but I still... I still love him. I hate that every time we think about Thomas, I start thinking about how Jamie wouldn’t approve of who Nico is now.”

Nico glanced between each of his facets. Creativity stared at Heart with a mixture of shock and sadness. Paranoia had slowly hunched over more and more during heart’s outburst, shrinking down until he was nothing but a puddle of shadows on the floor. Logic appeared completely indifferent to the situation at hand, but he kept loosening and tightening his tie over and over again.

“I want to say I didn’t know this was hurting you that much,” Nico said, “but I did know. It’s been hurting me, too. I...” He heaved a sigh. “I do think about Jamie every time I think of Thomas. I can’t help it. And now he’s affecting my entire ability to write because he never approved of my career.”

“I’m sorry,” Heart said, his voice quiet. “I want to be able to write, but I’m still broken. I can’t do much of anything.”

“Don’t apologize for something you can’t control,” Logic said. “It’s okay. We are slowly getting better. We’re taking baby steps. I believe the temporary solution to this problem is to provide Nico and Creativity with constructive criticism in order to improve and encourage their writing. Perhaps we can even ask Thomas for help. He’s always good at making Nico feel valued and listened to. He would surely love to help Nico out with his writing.”

“I like that idea.” Creativity took a step towards Heart. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure things out, Aurelio. We’re all still working to get over Jamie. We’ll get there eventually, just you wait.”

Nico held up a hand before anyone could say anything more. “Wait a minute, what did you just call him?” he asked Creativity.

Creativity blinked. “Aurelio?”

“Yeah.” Nico pointed to Heart. “Why did you call him that?”

Heart shrugged. “That’s my name,” he said simply, as if that was obvious.

Nico took a second to process that. “You have a name?”

“We all do,” Logic scoffed.

Nico’s thoughts were suddenly derailed off the topic at hand. “Since when did you have names? If Heart’s name is Aurelio, what are the rest of your names? Do you all have Spanish names because I have a Spanish name, or are they influenced by American culture because _I’ve_ been so influenced by American culture? Do you all have names that relate to your function or appearance in my imagination? If you all have separate names, does that also mean that you’re less like parts of a whole and more like individual people?” He raked a hand through his hair. “Oh dear god, this is a huge mind-fu—”

“Language, Nico!” Heart—er, Aurelio—interrupted. “Let’s keep this PG.”

Logic patted Nico’s shoulder. “The issue of our names can be left for another day. May we return to the issue at hand?”

“Right, right.” Nico shook his head to clear his thoughts.

Logic nudged the puddle of darkness on the floor that was Paranoia. “Anyway, Creativity, feel free to ask for criticism from the rest of us if you need to. Nico, I encourage you to keep trying to write today, but don’t worry if you don’t get much done. Now, I believe we should all get back. I’ve never been a fan of all the...” He waved a hand at a book that fluttered past his face. “The whimsy of this place.” Logic sank out.

Creativity turned to Paranoia and nudged him with his wizard staff. “Well, Doom and Gloom, I’m going to be honest, maybe your input wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. It was nice to hear your concerns when they weren’t worded in such a harsh manner.”

Paranoia shrugged. “Yeah, whatever.”

Creativity grinned. “Perhaps you would like to help me out a little more? Your high strung tendencies and my incredible ideas might be able to motivate Nico to write if we work together.”

Paranoia directed his gaze to the ground. “Yeah. Maybe.” He gestured to the floor. “I’m... I’m just gonna...”

He dissolved into a puddle of darkness that soaked into the floor.

Creativity sighed. “Well, at least we figured that out.” He twirled his staff in his hand. “I feel a bit better now, I think. Perhaps I’ll be able to work properly now.”

He sank out with a smile at Nico, leaving him alone with Heart... Aurelio. Boy, that was going to take some time to get used to.

Aurelio heaved a sigh. “I didn’t realize I was having such a bad effect on you,” he muttered.

“It’s okay,” Nico said. “I understand. We’re all still struggling, and it’s going to take some time to sort things out.”

“I know. I just wish I could fix everything now.”

“Me too, man.” Nico wrapped an arm around Aurelio’s shoulders. “But we’re taking baby steps, like Logic said. We’ll be fine eventually.”

Heart gave Nico a slight smile. “Yeah. Eventually.”

Creativity reappeared in a whirl of sparkles, startling both Nico and Aurelio. “I just realized that this is my room,” Creativity said. “I would like to be alone so I can work. Shoo, shoo!”

He waved Nico and Aurelio away with his staff. Aurelio sank out with Nico. They both popped up again in the living room.

Nico sighed and sat down on the couch. He looked up at Heart. “Wanna write some poetry?”

Aurelio sat down next to him. “Sure thing, Nico.”

*******

Logic swirled his tea in its cup. “I see what you mean now.”

The facet sitting across from him paused before he could take a sip of his own tea. “Hmm? About what?”

“About Paranoia,” Logic said. “I already knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know how bad it had gotten until now. He’s been freely entering Creativity’s room without an invitation. He’s beginning to effect the other facets of Nico’s personality. I have a theory that he’s part of the reason why Heart is so fixated on Nico’s ex-boyfriend. Perhaps Paranoia may even be able to stifle my influence on Nico at some point.”

The other facet chuckled. “Oh, I know. Don’t worry. Even if he manages to kill the rest of you, I’ll still be here.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t comfort me.”

The facet barked out a laugh. “Oh, you amuse me, Logic. Now, how’s your little litter of kittens over on the other side? I know Heart is constantly whining like a baby, but what about Creativity? Just as feisty as always? Has he tried to claw your face off yet, or am I thinking of my own experience with my own litter?” He pointed to his face. “The little lion almost took out my eye yesterday!” he announced with a maniacally gleeful tone in his voice.

“Creativity is perfectly well behaved, I’ll have you know.”

The other hummed, tilting his own teacup upside down and right-side up again without spilling any tea. “Disappointing. I would pay to see the two of you get in a fight. Imagination versus reality. Now that would attract an audience!”

Logic took a sip of tea. “I suppose it would. But back to the topic at hand—”

“Nico needs therapy,” the facet said simply.

“But it’s impossible to get him into therapy with Paranoia thwarting us every time we try to suggest it.”

The facet grinned, and just the look made Logic shudder. It was a little too wide, with a little too many teeth, with a little too much madness.

“My dearest Logic,” he said. “Nothing is impossible.”

The doors to the room suddenly flew open. Someone trudged in and slammed them shut behind him. He caught sight of Logic and the other facet and snarled.

“Hello, Paranoia,” Logic said.

“What the hell are you _doing here?”_ Paranoia snapped, his voice slipping into a deep, demonic reverb halfway through his sentence.

Logic gestured to the table between him and the other facet. “Having tea, obviously.”

The other facet fluttered his fingers at Paranoia. “Hello!” he called gleefully. A menacing tone had creeped into his voice underneath all the cheer. “How is our favourite little butterfly doing?”

Paranoia growled under his breath. His eyes flashed a deep blue under the hood of his cloak. He didn’t answer and instead made his way to the hallway that led out of the living room of the mindscape. Logic listened to his footsteps slowly fade.

He flinched when he heard a loud bang, like someone had punched the wall in the corridor. He heard a rough, gravelly voice shout something incomprehensible, followed by Paranoia’s deep demonic yelling.

The facet across the table paid it no mind, as if this was a normal occurrence. “I’m sure it’s quieter over on your side than it is over here,” he said, still grinning.

“We could always have tea over on our side,” Logic offered.

The facet let out a villainous cackle. “Like I can actually leave this place without it falling to pieces? Oh, you’re a riot, Logic. Last time I stepped out, I came back to a mess! Someone’s got to keep the order around here.”

“You are the opposite of order,” Logic pointed out.

“How polite of you to notice.”

A thump resonated through the hallway amongst the two voices shouting. “Sounds like someone’s losing their mind,” the other facet mused. He lifted his top hat. To Logic’s disgust, a human brain toppled out of the hat and splattered on the ground, knocking the facet’s teacup out of his hand along the way.

He set his hat back on his head. “You should probably leave.” His eyes flashed green under the brim of his hat. “Wouldn’t want you to witness the bloodbath.”

Logic set his teacup down, still half full. “Good idea,” he agreed. Truth be told, he was more than eager to leave. On his side of Nico’s mind, there wasn’t as much yelling and fighting and brains tumbling out of top hats.

The other facet grinned even wider. His body faded into nothing from the feet up. His smile remained for a ghost of a second before it disappeared as well.

Logic made his way to the door. Behind him, he heard the enraged shouting interrupted by a manic laugh. He opened the door and left the room, the laughing echoing in his head as he slammed the door behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> i know this one wasn't my best work, but thank you for reading it anyway if you got this far!!! please feel free to let me know what you liked, what you didn't like, what you think might happen, what you want to happen, or anything else you have on your mind while reading this! <3


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